Bangladesh Premier League champions Bashundhara Kings will take part in the qualifying play-offs of the AFC Champions League (ACL) as the first club from Bangladesh in the upcoming season of 2023-24.
The club are expecting to obtain a club licence from Asian Football Confederation at the end of this month before going to play in this premier club football competition in Asia, a club official told The Daily Sun with anonymity on Sunday.
“We will be the first club in Bangladesh to play in the ACL. Like other AFC competitions, we need to obtain a licence to play there. We applied for it and went through a process; hopefully, we’ll have the licence at the end of this month,” he added.
Bangladesh earned a spot in the qualifying play-offs of this ACL as they were ranked in the top 12 nations in the west zone of this top-tier club competition with 19.452 points from their overall performances in the club AFC’s club competitions including AFC Cup.
Kings were awarded the honour to represent Bangladesh in ACL as they were the champions of BPL 2021-22 and directly entered into the group stage (South Asia Zone) of the upcoming AFC Cup 2023-24.
Kings are likely to meet the Uzbek club FC AGMK Olmaliq in the double-leg preliminary round (playoff west 3). The first leg will be held on August 8 while the second leg on August 15.
Kings’ opponents FC AGMK Olmaliq achieved the spot in ACL as the fourth-placed team of Uzbekistan Super League 2022.
As per the competition format, the winners between Kings and Olmaliq will play against Al-Arabi who were the runners-up of Qatar Stars League 2022-23 and champions of the Emir of Qatar Cup 2023 in the single-leg play-offs round, expected to be held on August 22.
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